Final fantasy XIV any good?

[Theodora]

There are contents that are similiar between the two games.

The point is that constant comparison comes across as though a game is only worthwhile compared to another, i.e. that it doesn't stand on its own merits. Comparing FFXIV to WoW in excess actually disservices its positive traits as though it's simply a more refined version of another game's formula.

 

[Cryomancer]

Is a mmoRPG or a mmoDRESSING game?

For those who don't know, RPG has mechanical and narrative character building, that is the minimum. Morrowind is a RPG and TES Redguard isn't. Elden ring is but Sekiro isn't. Having a bit of mechanical character building is the bare minimum for a game to be a RPG and I see many modern mmo's, as mmoDRESSING games, not mmoRPG's. Vanguard : Saga of Heroes, DDO, Ultima Online and so on are mmorpg's, RETAIL wow, mu legend, albion online and so on are mmodRESSING games. Your char is nothign and his gear is everything.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

@Cryomancer

It's another anti-social lobby MMORPG where you sit in a hub and queue for instanced content and do your daily/weekly chores to grind a numbers treadmill (be it levelling up jobs or raising ilevel), just like retail WoW. It's even more anti-social than WoW because you are forced to progress through a mandatory 400+ hour long storyline, half of which is spent watching cutscenes by yourself, another 15% running to the next NPC to watch the next cutscene or two shotting quest mobs out in the field, and another 15% doing solo instances in which you cannot play with other people. Only 10% of the story experience has you play with other people, by queuing for story dungeons and boss fights with random people, saying hi at the beginning of the instance, wordlessly clearing after 10-15 minutes, and then leaving to never see those people ever again. Once you make it through the entire storyline, then you can begin raiding the latest raid tier. There is no socialization to be had in PvP either, as you cannot queue for rated 5v5 with a team of players. There is no RBG PUG scene where people chill in Discord while PvPing like there is in WoW.

 

[Theodora]

It's another anti-social lobby MMORPG where you sit in a hub and queue for instanced content and do your daily/weekly chores to grind a numbers treadmill (be it levelling up jobs or raising ilevel), just like retail WoW. It's even more anti-social than WoW because you are forced to progress through a mandatory 400+ hour long storyline, half of which is spent watching cutscenes by yourself, another 15% running to the next NPC to watch the next cutscene or two shotting quest mobs out in the field, and another 15% doing solo instances in which you cannot play with other people.

You say that like the story isn't a primary focus, but instead some awkward appendage. To me it's essentially a single-player JRPG with a lot of online elements, which isn't inherently a bad thing; but saying it's all lobbies is equally untrue once you start going into higher-end duties, where being part of a static -- i.e. a premade group -- is the norm for people serious about progressing, albeit to a lesser degree on the Japanese servers.

I don't really understand the logic that queuing systems are a problem when it's not hard to find to people for near activity manually. The reality is, when multiple people are a requirement these systems are going to be built into online games nowadays. Most people just aren't going to join or form a static just to try a game out, but there's plenty of tools (e.g. Cross-World Linkshells, the community finder) for those who do.

 

[Cryomancer]

Yes, but does the game have the basic RPG elements (ie - mechanical and narrative building from players) or is just another mmoDRESSING game like D3, GW2 and etc?

 

[Clockwork Knight]

There's a chat function and a market. If you mean sucking guilds off for raid invites or ganking people in the woods, no

edit: there is PvP but it's instanced

 

[Theodora]

I don't really know or care because obsessing over genre boundaries is the last thing I ever want to spend my life doing. "Is X an RPG?" -- might as well ask if its soul is hot pink.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I don't really understand the logic that queuing systems are a problem when it's not hard to find to people for near activity manually.

The levelling experience of modern MMOs such as WoW or GW2 or FFXIV is easy enough that it can be soloed, so people solo their way to endgame and haven't been incentivized to join a guild, and thus remain solo players. The game has taught them that they can do everything solo and do not need to join a guild, and thus remain solo. Maybe they finish the raid and decide they want to raise their ilevel more, so they start PUGing. Rarely will they join a guild. In oldschool MMOs, you needed a guild to raid because of loot distribution, since bosses could drop loot your class might be unable to equip. You got geared in a guild far faster than in a PUG, but in FFXIV you progress nearly at the same rate because each player is guaranteed to get at least one token they can use from every boss kill. LFR/Duty roulette/PUGing rarely leads to the formation of friendships or communities. It's just strangers queueing together for 15 minutes to an hour or two to get their reward and then parting ways and never talking to each other ever again. They view each other as cogs in a machine to be replaced, yelling at each other and kicking people from the PUG for a perceived failing such as lackluster DPS rather than working together and trying to improve to overcome a difficult task. It's a mercenary mentality.

Oldschool MMOs naturally formed friendships, guilds, and communities. Levelling was hard and you were incentivized to find other people to play with to continue progressing, long before you reach level cap and began endgame. Vanilla WoW lacked a dungeon finder. If you wanted to do a dungeon, you had to find four other people who fulfilled specific roles and had motivation to do that dungeon. The effort required to assemble that group and then travel to the dungeon through dangerous territory really motivated you to make sure that group succeeded. You were out in the world trying to find committed individuals to play this difficult content with. "This guy can tank and he's good! I need him!". You created a friends list and formed guilds, and then it scales up from there. You created guilds because you needed way more than 40 people to do these 40 man raids. You needed backup raiders who could replace people, crafters, people farming mats for your crafters, etc. Now you're having to do things that are completely external to the actual game itself. You're designing guild websites and moderating guild forums so that everyone can communicate and organize without being logged into the game. This is what ended up making the game good.

During Shadowbringers, I queued for a dungeon run and landed Amdapor. I got lucky and somehow got a party that was very talkative (was probably a premade), and after the run they invited me to their FC, so I joined. A few weeks later we formed a static and raided savage that expansion for a few months before the static disbanded. That is very much not the norm from what I see. Never saw it happen when queuing for dungeons or LFR in WoW or FF14, nor happen again anytime after in FF14.

 

[Theodora]

My issue with this line of thinking is that it kinda operates on the implicit understanding that one is totally devoid of willpower -- that because the easy, "anti-social" method is available, one will inevitably only do that and put zero effort into finding people, even though those experiences are totally accessible still (and finding a group not significantly more effort than in "oldschool MMOs").

You created a friends list and formed guilds, and then it scales up from there. You created guilds because you needed way more than 40 people to do these 40 man raids. You needed backup raiders who could replace people, crafters, people farming mats for your crafters, etc. Now you're having to do things that are completely external to the actual game itself. You're designing guild websites and moderating guild forums so that everyone can communicate and organize without being logged into the game. This is what ended up making the game good.

Having to micromanage people doing minutiae or being a cog in an online production chain isn't good game design to anyone with an inkling of a social life imo. And that's the exact reason this kinda thing isn't remotely popular.

You're confusing a sense of camaraderie with the individual details you remember of one instance. Games have matchmaking because the world changed, and that change is at least as much independent of gamedevs as it was precipitated by them. But at the end of the day the things you claim to value, at their core, are there if you put in the effort. And you always had to put in effort, at the end of the day.

 

[Tacgnol]

I don't really understand the logic that queuing systems are a problem when it's not hard to find to people for near activity manually.

The levelling experience of modern MMOs such as WoW or GW2 or FFXIV is easy enough that it can be soloed, so people solo their way to endgame and haven't been incentivized to join a guild, and thus remain solo players. The game has taught them that they can do everything solo and do not need to join a guild, and thus remain solo. Maybe they finish the raid and decide they want to raise their ilevel more, so they start PUGing. Rarely will they join a guild. In oldschool MMOs, you needed a guild to raid because of loot distribution, since bosses could drop loot your class might be unable to equip. You got geared in a guild far faster than in a PUG, but in FFXIV you progress nearly at the same rate because each player is guaranteed to get at least one token they can use from every boss kill. LFR/Duty roulette/PUGing rarely leads to the formation of friendships or communities. It's just strangers queueing together for 15 minutes to an hour or two to get their reward and then parting ways and never talking to each other ever again. They view each other as cogs in a machine to be replaced, yelling at each other and kicking people from the PUG for a perceived failing such as lackluster DPS rather than working together and trying to improve to overcome a difficult task. It's a mercenary mentality.

Oldschool MMOs naturally formed friendships, guilds, and communities. Levelling was hard and you were incentivized to find other people to play with to continue progressing, long before you reach level cap and began endgame. Vanilla WoW lacked a dungeon finder. If you wanted to do a dungeon, you had to find four other people who fulfilled specific roles and had motivation to do that dungeon. The effort required to assemble that group and then travel to the dungeon through dangerous territory really motivated you to make sure that group succeeded. You were out in the world trying to find committed individuals to play this difficult content with. "This guy can tank and he's good! I need him!". You created a friends list and formed guilds, and then it scales up from there. You created guilds because you needed way more than 40 people to do these 40 man raids. You needed backup raiders who could replace people, crafters, people farming mats for your crafters, etc. Now you're having to do things that are completely external to the actual game itself. You're designing guild websites and moderating guild forums so that everyone can communicate and organize without being logged into the game. This is what ended up making the game good.

During Shadowbringers, I queued for a dungeon run and landed Amdapor. I got lucky and somehow got a party that was very talkative (was probably a premade), and after the run they invited me to their FC, so I joined. A few weeks later we formed a static and raided savage that expansion for a few months before the static disbanded. That is very much not the norm from what I see. Never saw it happen when queuing for dungeons or LFR in WoW or FF14, nor happen again anytime after in FF14.

I agree that dungeon finders were negative for server identity and community in wow. Wrath killed the close-knit communities that servers had previously been where all the big players knew each other and talked on realm forums. That sense of community was permanently gone with both the dungeon finder and then the final death knell that was sharded cross-realm zones. You no longer saw the same names and faces but a bunch of randoms who you would never interact with again.

That said, close-knit guilds still exist on wow and in FFXIV (as FCs). From what I've seen of end-game raiding in FFXIV it has the exact same level of organisation as wow. Also on another note, top-tier raiding FCs seem to headhunt and recruit in much the same cutthroat manner as wow mythic guilds and have the same organisational and performance reqs that is common at that level on other MMOs. Also, seem to have the exact same scandals as WOW about "cheating" world firsts.

I also think the dungeon finder in Wrath was when people got a lot more toxic and unfriendly. Previously if you ninja looted or acted like an extreme dick then your name would go straight to the realm forums with proof and you would never be grouped with or be able to join a good guild on that server ever again. With the effect of "anonymisation" or at least interacting with more faceless randoms, many people stopped giving a shit about the consequences of bad actions.

 

[janior]

if you don't ninja loot u are a pussy

 

[Tacgnol]

if you don't ninja loot u are a pussy

Taking stuff you don't actually need when others do is a dick move. It rightfully got you blacklisted back in the day.

Community self-policing was an important part of social play in mmos.

 

[Theodora]

Is my memory correct that you can need items your character can't use in WoW? I was very happily surprised that FFXIV only lets you role need for your current job's equipables.

 

[Joggerino]

And I was shocked to find out "need" takes priority over "greed" no matter the roll. Millions lost in party treasure hunts.

 

[Cryomancer]

I don't really know or care because obsessing over genre boundaries is the last thing I ever want to spend my life doing. "Is X an RPG?" -- might as well ask if its soul is hot pink.

I don't like the idea of playing a close of everyone who chose the same class like on D3 for eg.

I wanna be able to chose how my character will gonna be mechanic wise and have some connection with my char.

The effort required to assemble that group and then travel to the dungeon through dangerous territory really motivated you to make sure that group succeeded.

Warlocks could summon party members.

 

[Joggerino]

Yes, but does the game have the basic RPG elements (ie - mechanical and narrative building from players) or is just another mmoDRESSING game like D3, GW2 and etc?

Unfortunately no. I don't know how it is in other MMORPGs but I have yet to make a single decision in FF14 that changes anything except getting a different reaction in dialogue.

 

[Tacgnol]

Is my memory correct that you can need items your character can't use in WoW? I was very happily surprised that FFXIV only lets you role need for your current job's equipables.

You could yeah. I think they changed it eventually.

 

[Cryomancer]

Yes, but does the game have the basic RPG elements (ie - mechanical and narrative building from players) or is just another mmoDRESSING game like D3, GW2 and etc?

Unfortunately no. I don't know how it is in other MMORPGs but I have yet to make a single decision in FF14 that changes anything except getting a different reaction in dialogue.

Thanks a lot for the sincerity. I would have wasted my time trying this game. I think that I will try Last Chaos online then.

Or see if ChatGPT can recommend a mmo.

 

[Theodora]

I mean if you're actually expecting any modern MMORPG to be an RPG in the Morrowind sense you're already wasting your time for the most part. Unless it's a sandbox like EVE where the player-affected world is the product of player decisions, you're not going to get a sense of reactivity worth a damn. Personally I prefer not having choices pretending to be meaningful over a pretence with zero weight at the end of the day.

But to reiterate, your choices won't meaningfully affect the result of any MMO because it's a shared world, UNLESS the world itself is entirely player driven, which is rare for a reason (it's a bitch to balance an economy right when it's the entire game, and only appeals to a niche audience to begin with).

WoW e.g. has talent choices, but my experience there and in other MMOs is the choices you have to "make your character unique" aren't really all that unless you're okay essentially sabotaging your character. The choice you have instead with FFXIV is making a character who has a sense of personality and fashion you find meaningful on a personal level; admittedly meaningless if you only care about the numbers and abilities, but it clearly strikes a cord with a lot of people.

Numbers-wise, the best thing they've managed to do (at least for a while now) is make all the jobs viable (one character can play as many jobs as you like), such that class choice isn't deeply subject to the usual min-max metagaming stuff that plagues most MMOs with a raiding scene.

 

[Tacgnol]

WoW e.g. has talent choices, but my experience there and in other MMOs is the choices you have to "make your character unique" aren't really all that unless you're okay essentially sabotaging your character. The choice you have instead with FFXIV is making a character who has a sense of personality and fashion you find meaningful on a personal level; admittedly meaningless if you only care about the numbers and abilities, but it clearly strikes a cord with a lot of people.

I actually really dislike the new wow talents as they've moved tons of stuff that were baseline for specs before to the talent tree, and much of it is mandatory. So they've very much created an illusion of choice.

The irony is the Pandaria system, although much shouted as being dumbed down, actually did give you a fair amount of choice as most of the fundamental choices were generally within 5% of each other performance-wise but usually supported different gameplay styles. For example, Death Knights could pick between three different rune generation systems that suited different players but were all ultimately very close in numbers if played well.

I guess my illusion of choice argument is actually relevant to most MMOs that allow you to spec characters, as there is almost always going to be a far numerically superior cookie-cutter build over anything a player is going to pick (as you yourself allude to).

 

[Cryomancer]

MMORPG to be an RPG in the Morrowind sense

Not like Morrowind. But Vanguard : Saga of Heroes, Dungeons & Dragons Online, this games aren't sandbox games but in case of DDO, has the same depth on character creation of ANY 3.5e CRPG adaptation.

The same decline which ruined some franchises, transforming games into merely dressing games, like Diablo 2 -> Diablo 3, Gothic -> ArcaniA, Dungeon Siege 2 -> 3(...) seems to be affecting almost all modern mmos. See Guild Wars 1 to 2. Mu to Mu Legend. Almost all become mmoDRESSING games.

I honestly rather deal with all dated graphics and clunkness of Asheron's Call over playing a mmoDRESSING game. But the game don't need to be as in depth like DDO. If the game ends up being a Vanguard : Saga of Heroes clone, I would be more than satisfied. Recently, I tried Champions Online. Interesting, has the basic of what I expect from RPG's but is too P2W and I honestly don't like the super hero theme.

I guess my illusion of choice argument is actually relevant to most MMOs that allow you to spec characters,

Illusion of choices is much better than no choices.

But look into DDO.

There is no "better build", people keep debating the best warlock pact for ages and can't find a solution, because everything is situational. People discuss the "highest DC Pale Master" build, but they know that a high DC PM can be great in some adventures and worthless in another.

 

[Tacgnol]

DDO has never had a reputation for super autistic end-game raiding. Raiders in mythic guilds in wow (and FFXIV from the world firsts I've seen) will frantically search for ways to increase their dps by 0.1% in a specific fight, using complex simulations and analysis of other peoples fight logs.

That 0.1% might actually end up being the difference required to beat a piece of content with an extremely tight dps check.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Cryomancer
give these a look

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Project_Gorgon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibia_(video_game)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_Online

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wurm_Online

 

[Theodora]

God, Tibia takes me back. (I had a neighbour that played it when I was a child.) What's it even like these days? I don't remember much than the "you type spells to cast them" and rather aggressive pvp.

Cryomancer Have you tried OldSchool RuneScape at all? You might enjoy as ironman account in it, which gets you away entirely from the motivators of "efficiency" that discourage making your own decisions.

Edit: Oh, and there's no microtransactions. You can buy membership tokens that you can sell in-game on normal (non-iron) accounts, which they gave into eventually to try to stop RMT. But there's never going to be MTX (big decisions / updates are all polled, for a start, but they also just know it'd kill the game).

 

[Delterius]

What's it even like these days?

Last I checked it's still ongoing and still making new content every 6 months. At one point they mostly solved the bot problem, but failed to bring their ancient franken client to steam's specs. They even added sound and a few years back hired an actual designer into their team. They have a faithful playerbase willing to pay a rather steep fee to keep it all going. Still the same sandbox mmo as ever.